


Stone-faced

by Ahmerst



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4864790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahmerst/pseuds/Ahmerst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Mink learns to leave statues the hell alone (but only after it’s too late).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stone-faced

The first time Mink found the statue, he thought little of it. Dusk was quickly approaching, the horizon singed with reds and deep indigo as the light began to fade. Mink shifted the weight of his backpack, the straps biting into his shoulders. He’d gone exploring as he had many times before, taking from nature what he could sell to man. Herbs and flowers for tinctures and balms, molted feathers from the forest floor and colored stones smoothed by streams for crafts. 

Finding these things was never difficult. Flora grew wild along roads, winding up faded signs and encroaching on unused footpaths. Birds of all kinds made their nests on window sills, families of raccoons occasionally peering out from empty attics at the sound of Mink’s footsteps. It was easy for nature to take over when humans weren’t there to destroy it.

That was what was difficult to find─ humans. And that was precisely why Mink stayed. 

Long ago the villages in the mountains had emptied. No, emptied was too kind, too calm a way to explain it. Driven, that was better. Prying eyes and greedy hands had come for the villagers after hearing of folk medicines and rare gems. It wasn’t history or culture these people were after, but money. And with that need stoking their interests it wasn’t long before they were invading villages and knocking down doors, demanding information that was never theirs to begin with.

The people were gone now. All of them, the good and the bad. But Mink remained as he had, his home a small and unassuming cabin that was safe from the main roads and those who used them. It was a quiet life, but not one he deemed lonely. He filled his time with finding the empty villages that remained, leaving what houses and goods left in them untouched, instead taking only from the outside world to meet his needs.

It was on the outskirts of such a village that he saw the statue. He took it to be a human, the first he’d seen in some time. They were hunched and small as they sat on the ground, dressed in white and pale against the oncoming twilight. A lost hiker, Mink figured, his mind already mentally mapping a route back to the main road as he approached them, footfalls heavy as to alert them to his presence.

But they didn’t turn, didn’t lift their head or show a sign that they heard him.

As he neared he realized they weren’t a human at all, but instead a statue, moss growing in green patches along their back, dead pine needles dusting their shoulders. When Mink came around to see their front, he found the statue’s head bowed, its hair artlessly layered and lacking finesse. Mink crouched down for a better look at its face.

It had none.

There was a blankness to its stone, its face devoid of features. Whether they’d been worn away by time or never there to begin with, Mink couldn’t tell. With a sigh he rose to his feet, a quiet disappointment seeping into his thoughts as he stood tall. He was hardly vexed that he hadn’t found another person, but instead the sensation came from his lack of understanding for the statue.

It wasn’t decorative. Mink knew enough of the surrounding lands and of his own culture to realize that. Things weren’t placed without meaning, but with no clues as to its purpose, Mink was left in the dark to wonder what it was. Knowing he needed to get home before the chill of night set in, Mink stood and unshouldered his backpack, pausing to take from it the leftover hardtack bread he’d brought for lunch.

He placed it in the lap of the statue, an offering in return for the goods he’d found for the day.

\---

Months passed before Mink returned to the empty village in search of resources again. The statue was his landmark this time, visible from afar as a white beacon in the sun as Mink hiked up the steep slope that lead toward the village. He came to a halt before the statue, gazing down at it, unsurprised that the bread he left was gone.

Prepared this time with another offering, Mink took from his bag softer, fresher bread than before. He placed it again on the statue’s lap, putting beside it a handful of fresh berries he’d found while hiking. As he glanced up before standing, he saw the statue’s face again, this time better illuminated by the daylight.

It wasn’t the smooth, featureless surface he recalled it to be. Instead there were the startings of a sloped nose and raised browbone. The lips weren’t quite there, but the impression of them was noticeable. In the low light from before none of this had been visible to Mink, but now he let the details settle into his mind as he stood, walking past the statue to forage ahead.

The statue stayed in his thoughts, even as he searched for the herbs and flowers he’d come for. He considered its presence, how it sat at the outskirts of the village, turned away from homes and instead facing the wilderness. Mink thought back to what he’d been told as a child, the reminders to always leave offerings in the hopes of safety and protection, or the chance of a bountiful year full of thriving crops. But those statues had been in the center of villages, a point of focus as opposed to something sat on the sidelines. 

It still weighed on him as the sun moved across the sky and his backpack became full and heavy. With sweat on his brow, Mink found himself heading home, not hesitating to pass the statue along his route. He nodded to it in acknowledgment, deciding that it must have been made for the protection of the village, a guardian against what might try to hurt those that lived beyond it.

Being unfinished, the statue was rendered useless, no more than a remnant of a people that were no longer there.

So focused was Mink on his own theories that it was only when he lay awake in bed that night that he realized upon his leaving that his offering was already gone by the time he left.

\---

The next time Mink returned to the village was after the first frost of the season, the leafs dead and crunching beneath his feet as he walked. The usual life of the forest was dulled, the cold sending many animals into hiding. There was little in the way of resources to be found, what hadn’t been killed off by cold already grazed down to the forest floor.

But Mink wasn’t looking for that today.

Instead he kept an eye out for the statue he’d come to find familiar, underbrush snapping as he made a straight line for it. Mink found it in the same spot he always had, still sitting, still pale and made of a stone he couldn’t quite identify. Its head remained lowered, hair falling over its face, obscuring it from Mink’s view. He could see the definition of each strand, and it made his heart beat uneasily as he sat before the statue, mirroring its cross-legged position.

The face he saw on the statue now was beautiful, borderline ethereal. The eyebrows were thin and arched, each fine hair sculpted into the stone. The lips were set into a borderline pout, a delicate Cupid’s bow above them. The eyes were half open, gazing at a distant point that didn’t exist. None of this had been there before, Mink was sure of that.

Mink took a steadying breath as he opened his backpack, taking from it a small meal of freshly baked bread and dried meat. He placed it in the lap of the statue, sitting back to watch for any sign of life. Seconds passed, and then minutes. After half an hour Mink’s joints ached from staying in one position so long, and the cold of the air wasn’t helping.

It was ridiculous to do this, he told himself, the reality of it sinking in. The statue was certainly unusual, but by no means supernatural. Of course the bread he first left would be gone after months of being away. The second time his offering was no doubt snatched up by hungry animals as they prepared for the shortage that was to come. The face...

That Mink couldn’t explain, but maybe it wasn’t something he was meant to understand. 

Getting to his feet, Mink reshouldered his backpack, knees popping and back aching. He gave the statue one last look, frustration warming his chest at his lack of understanding for it. He’d be back in the spring, he promised himself. If things hadn’t changed, he’d leave it at that, knowing then it was a mystery beyond him.

But it didn’t take until spring for it to remain unchanged.

Mink was five steps away with his back to the statue when he heard the voice.

“Jeez, about time you stop staring. Isn’t that a rude thing to you humans? And here I thought someone like you would know better. Serves me right for thinking any of your kind have common sense.”

Part of Mink didn’t want to look back. It wanted to run, to not see what had happened now that his eyes had left the statue. But another part, one much stronger and now making him turn around, needed to see what was behind him. What he saw was the statue, no longer stone but now flesh, though still as pale as before. Their hair fell in layers over their shoulders, the same stark white save for tips that were a soft shade of baby blue.

Their eyes flashed an inhuman gold as they took Mink in, gaze flicking from head to toe in a look of appraisal. 

“What are you?” Mink asked, his muscles stiff with surprise as the statue moved closer to him with purposeful steps.

“Well, first of all, I’m damn hungry,” the statue said, ripping a hunk of bread from what Mink had left. “Secondly... I don’t know.”

The statue shrugged then, eyes going distant for a moment with disinterest before they were chewing a second mouthful of bread.

“You don’t have a name?” Mink asked. 

The statue waved its now empty hand flippantly. “I’m not saying I haven’t picked up a nickname here or there, but mostly people call me ‘that guy’ or 'get out of here.’”

“How charming," said Mink flatly. The longer the two of them spoke, the less he thought he should stay.

“Look, if you‘re going to be so insistent about all this, how about you tell me yours first?”

Mink hesitated, his throat going tight. Telling his name to this person was a bad idea in all respects, and yet his own curiosity was keeping him from leaving. He’d returned to this statue too many times before to walk away now.

“My name is Mink,” he answered at last.

“Sheesh, short and to the point. Maybe I need something similar,” the statue said, stopping within arm’s length of Mink, settling his hands on his hips. “How does Sly sound to you?”

“It’s your decision,” Mink said.

“Well I think it sounds good," Sly said. The smug upturn of his lips sloped into an indignant pout, the amused glimmer in his eyes dulling. “You know, I kind of expected you to be a little more surprised by all of this.”

Mink supposed anyone else would be left balking or silent in a state of pseudo shock from a statue springing to life. But he was raised to believe this was possible, folk tales not told to him as something to send him to sleep but instead to prepare him should he ever run into the beings they spoke of. But in his memory the stories were now foggy, the lures he was meant to watch out for lost to time, the best ways to appease such beings buried years ago.

He was sure he should be wary of Sly, but it was difficult to remain on guard. The regal countenance Mink would expect of something divine wasn’t there. Instead Sly exuded a muted sort of displeasure, a brooding air that made him seem less supernatural and more like a sulking teenager that was upset at not being taken seriously.

Sly came to stand beside Mink, turning to look back at the town. His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth as he shook his head, arms folding across his chest.

“Looks like a ghost town,” Sly said.

“It is,” Mink told him.

Sly sniffed, his nose wrinkling. “Can’t say I’m too heartbroken. They were a bunch of kill joys, y’know?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Mink said.

“Trust me on it,” Sly said. “Nothing but a load of wet blankets. Want to live it up a little? Spend some time on the wild side? Fat chance. They’ll turn you into the village paperweight quicker than you can blink.”

Ah.

That was his story, Sly’s reason for being on the outskirts. He was a troublemaker and a trickster, someone banished for their acts. Hardly the kind of person Mink needed in his life. Best to cut ties as soon as possible, shed the risk of having such a mischievous spirit attached to him. Mink eased his weight onto one foot as he turned away from the village, the hair on the back of his neck prickling as he sensed eyes following him.

“You’re leaving?” Sly asked. He sounded half offended, like he couldn’t believe anyone would walk away from him.

“I’m going home,” Mink said. 

“Hope you have a nice pad,” Sly said. Mink heard the crunch of his footsteps as he followed.

“I didn’t say ‘we.’”

Mink’s steps were halted when Sly grabbed his arm. His fingers were cold through Mink’s heavy overcoat, and he had a strength that belied his delicate looks. When Mink turned his head, he found Sly’s eyes flashing brightly, his expression ferociously serious. 

“You were the one that took care of me. You were the one that brought me back,” Sly said.

“I did,” Mink replied, not adding what a bad idea it had been. He was foolish to think it would be as easy as walking away from what he’d started, and he knew it.

“So you’re in it for the long haul, bub. Like it or not,” Sly said, dropping his hand from Mink’s arm. 

Mink sighed, the dull burn of a headache beginning in his temple. It was true. He’d been the one to leave offerings, the one to wake Sly from his state of sleep. To leave him now would be spitting in the face of what higher beings existed, an invitation for ruin into a life that barely had much in it already.

“Fine,” Mink relented. “You can come with me.”

For all the premature regret that was already settling into Mink’s thoughts as they began the trek home, he tried to tell himself that at the very least, the new company might provide interesting.


End file.
